Loneliness is Something You Do To Yourself

For years I’ve identified as an “I” on the Briggs Myers Personality Scale but I also realize that I’m given to  too  some self centeredness and a  need to be alone.    Still, after a brief period of solititude and not welcoming people and places into my life I feel myself coming back.  Once again I am reaching out to people and things that I had pushed away or left in the background.    The late author Merle Shain was a Canadian author  I heard  years ago do an interview with Larry King on his radio show . Shain  wrote in her book  “When Lovers Are Friends ” that loneliness is something you do to yourself.    It has taken me years to understand that concept.    Lately I’ve watched my married friends more closely.  Some really do seem to like each other.  Some barely tolerate each other.  I watched this weekend as a married friend expressed her loneliness and bitterness in small, hostile ways to those attending a party at my house.    I realize it was not my job to save her.  She knew better than I…but not enough to take the “I” out of her equation .    It seemed to me that  that her husband  not “acting” right was not  the key  to her misery but  her own inability to love herself.    Love is something that must be expressed and revealed  to others with no conditions, otherwise it is anything but love.  I also realize that folks ought to like each other too in romantic partnerships.    Jean Claude and Roxie, a boy and a girl, are the best of friends.  They like their alone time and they give each other space to go and grow.  They also have different tastes – Jean Claude likes boxes and furry sticks.  Roxie likes laser toys and Mariah Carey.  Yet they have points of commonality such as   filtered water and scratching post boxes.  They show affection for each other often but often let  each other just be – without judgement  or fear of loneliness.